


bon sang ne saurait mentir

by Hyb



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, POV Chris Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/Hyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guilt tastes a lot like silver, Chris has found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bon sang ne saurait mentir

**Author's Note:**

> A reworking of an old fragment.

  
  


The air is too still in his bedroom, settling over his chest like concrete. Chris sleeps with the window open; it's against the rules. The pine branches whisper together and Chris hears wolves,  hoarse steaming breath like thunder. Louder, and louder, until he covers his ears.   
  
Chris cuts checks that won't clear. The crematorium. The urn. Her name is crisp against the paper, black and final. Experience has taught him to never ask Gerard for money. The Argent name is old, Gerard likes to say, worth far more than silver. Not worth enough to buy Kate new shoes, Chris thinks. He stole the last pair, stuffed them under his shirt and bolted.   
  
They have a service for his mother. Wreaths and a cluster of hunters in their best shoes, which are still scuffed as shit. Chris called the paper for the obit, no photograph, closed service, please stop calling us. Wrapped the telephone cord around his fist until it ripped his scabbed knuckles open. Their home in Veneta is only a cough away from the city of Eugene. From all those civic-minded Oregonians wondering about Clare Argent and her death. Wondering about a grizzly attack so near.   
  
Kate won't dress for the service when Chris tells her. She screams her throat raw and claws her way under her bed, no matter how many times he promises her Mom won't be there. She won't come back. All they have of his mother is her arm, her fingerprints, her burnished wedding band snug against her knuckle. They have Kate's night terrors and bile at the back of Chris's throat. Guilt tastes a lot like silver, he's found.   
  
Their house hunches at the end of a winding road, peeling clapboards and a sagging porch. His mother never was much of a housekeeper. Never much of a cook, either. She would kiss Chris' cheeks extravagantly when he grilled cheese sandwiches in the cast iron skillet, or fabricated casseroles from frozen vegetables and condensed soup. Until Gerard came home - every month or three - and they would eat in silence until he left again.   
  
All the lights are on downstairs, after the service, pools of yellow cast over the towering pines. They have no neighbors, none in sight. None to hear Gerard and his hunting buddies on their second case of beer, shouting over one another, arguing their old stories. Who bagged the wendigo, who skinned the mermaid. Their voices hammer in the dark rooms upstairs. In the fleeting space between breaths, Chris imagines hoisting his crossbow and taking aim between his father's eyes.   
  
Gerard taught him how to hold a shotgun but his mother had the patience for the bow. She could bag a deer from sixty yards. You have to shoot before it sees you, she would say. It won't be afraid. She never once took aim at Gerard, not even when her eye was swollen shut. Not when her ribs were broken.   
  
In seven days he'll be fifteen. Chris can drive more than well, but getting pulled over after dark without a license deters him. No matter how he wants to climb into the pickup and disappear over the horizon. Gerard could cut him out; he could lock Chris' baby sister away from him.  
  
So he drags Kate out from under the bed, wraps her in a quilt. Carries her out the window and onto the roof, chimney at their backs. His mother knew the constellations, but Chris could never keep them straight. Just liked laying on the roof, listening to her stories. There's an archer, in the stars, and a hunter. Kate cries without sound against him until his shirt is sodden, and Chris tries to remember.   
  
  
…   
  
  
On his birthday, Chris presses a bag of frozen peas to his cheek. The skin is swollen, hot and tight to touch. He sits on the sagging porch, drinking one of Gerard's beers. It tastes terrible. Chris swallows harder, petty.   
  
There are no clouds. The moon is full, searing silver. Chris can see the worn footpath into the trees. A possum skulks across and freezes, its beady eyes cast upward, bright as safety pins.   
  
Chris hears a wolf breathing. It sounds like thunder until the blood drums in his ears louder, louder. The pines shiver. He looks to Gerard, through the window. His father is sleeping on the sofa; his mouth has fallen slack.   
  
The wolf pads onto the path. It's dark, limned in molten silver. It never blinks. Three paws shift and spread against the dirt, like a sprinter coiling.   
  
Chris flings open the door and lets his mother in.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and many thanks should you choose to leave your feedback. You can also find me on [tumblr](http://h-yb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
